DISTRICT10a-C-12OCT00-SZ-VM Main Gate to Hunters Point Naval Shipyard the city is still struggling to get title to the shipyard. Story on the SF Supervisors races on the southeast side by Vince Maggiora

DISTRICT10a-C-12OCT00-SZ-VM Main Gate to Hunters Point Naval...

Senate OKs funds to clean shipyard / Feinstein secures $50.6 million for Hunters Point work

The U.S. Senate approved $50.6 million yesterday for the Navy to continue cleaning Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco, a toxic Superfund site and one of the biggest swaths of unused land in the city.

That left the Navy with about $9 million for a cleanup program that is already under criticism for its snail's pace at the shipyard that closed in 1974 and was named a Superfund site in 1989.

The decontamination project received $57 million last year.

"What Dianne did was an extremely important first step in this process," said Saul Bloom, director of Arc Ecology, a Bay Area nonprofit group that evaluates the economic and environmental effects of federal facilities on local communities.

Bloom and Bayview-Hunters Point community members have lobbied Feinstein and other representatives for more money to cover the Navy's budgeting shortage.

The Navy reported that it had not included $141 million in its budget for the 2001-02 fiscal year for a variety of programs across the country, including the Hunters Point cleanup, according to Feinstein's office.

The Senate appropriation bill approved yesterday covers most of that funding. The total package approved was a $10.5 billion spending plan for military construction, housing and environmental remediation projects around the country.

The bill goes to the House next for approval. It requires the Navy to provide a detailed schedule, cost estimates and progress reports for the shipyard cleanup.

The Navy has been under pressure from Feinstein and Mayor Willie Brown to finish cleaning up the 500 acres in southeast San Francisco.

Brown wants to see housing and commercial space developed there. But the site has been beset by problems, including a long-burning underground fire last year that alarmed neighbors who are already concerned about the high incidence of asthma and cancers in their district.

Last year, the mayor persuaded Navy officials to sign a time line for the cleanup. That deal was struck about the same time that San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution that demanded the Navy finally remove all the toxic substances.

"I know the Navy has made a commitment to Sen. Feinstein that we will clean up this property as quickly as we can," said Marie Avery, a base closure manager for the Navy.

Bloom, however, is worried. As the United States prepares for what President Bush has said will be a long war on terrorism, Bloom fears that the Navy will syphon off cleanup money for other military needs.

"There's absolute concern that there is not enough money to do the job," Bloom said.

And it's a big job. For 50 years, the Navy used the shipyard to store and distribute fuel, electroplate batteries, repair submarines and do metal work, leaving behind in the soil and groundwater petroleum wastes, solvents, metals and toxic polychlorinated biphenyl. There is radioactive waste, too.

Some parcels that were historically used for Navy housing are ready to be turned over to San Francisco for development, and other slices of land will be released to the city piecemeal as they are cleaned.